Chirps of a Forest Bird

  Hello Everyone! For the past three days, it has been raining heavily here. I mean, it is raining too much. July and August months are the time when the monsoon goes at its peak. Well, I think this time, Monson went over its peak. So I thought of sharing what had happened due to this rain and what might be the reason. Our region, western ghats has an average rainfall of 3000-4000 per year. And it is completely normal for us to be isolated for one week in this mid-monsoon time. But from 5-6 years this system is going quite different. The worst situation I’ve ever seen in the monsoon was in 2019. We got one week break from school and even helicopters came to rescue the people stuck in the flood( not here. In some other part of our district). But 2021’s rain broke this record. The highest rainfall in the whole state recorded in these three days is 541mm which is in a small village in our district. In our village, the first day we got average rainfall of 185 mm which is way too high f...

  When I was born , my father was working for wildlife and forest conservation. So I was named Vanya, which means forest in sanskrit. Many times, people who came to our home, pronounced my name as Vaanya, which was supposed to be pronounce as Vanyaa. This always made me wonder, is there any other meaning for my name? But yesterday I accidently typed my name in google search and learnt more things about my name. Well, Vanya doesn’t only means forest… it has lot other meanings in other languages! So here in India, there are a tonnes of girl’s names that ends with  ‘nya’  or ‘ ya’ . For example :  Dhanya, Manya, Kanya, Aanya, Aranya, Ananya, Kavya, Navya. . etc. Also, almost 80% of my friends’ name ends with ‘nya’ or ‘ya’ ! So whenever someone asks my name, many of them confuses it to some other name like  Dhanya , and I have to explain my name with syllables. This time, I searched over 50 websites about names and their meanings and finally found some meanings whic...

  Some call me Ganga, some call me Narmada. Some named me Nile and some says Congo. I go by many names, but I am same everywhere…With different forms and different names, I’m the water you drink… I’m Aghanashini for some, and Amazon for some. I’m  nehir  in Turkey, and  nadi  in India.I’m part of many lives and heritages- and I’m universal… I don’t only nurture humans, but also lacks of other creatures… There are colourful birds, jumping frogs, and quirky fishes… and tonnes of other. I’ve got a huge family called earth. And in that huge family, humans are members too… members-not rulers. Photo by  Sergio Capuzzimati  on  Unsplash Today, I am all polluted. You seems to thing I belong to you only… but no. There are many other creatures living in me, not only you. You dump your wastes in water, it may be an easy deal for you. But not for animals live with me. Your plastics are eaten by the fishes here. Your pollution is making the coral reefs in sea ...

  It was back in my 4th grade. I was walking back from school. Suddenly a flock of different birds passed over my head shouting loudly. There were 2-3 woodpeckers, bee-eaters, and 4 other types of birds. I wondered, how birds of different species can become a flock… They weren’t fighting at all. Instead, they were flying and resting on trees for some seconds and flying again. After I reached home, I asked my father about it. He said it was called mixed hunting. A (rowdy) bird called Drongo chased all these birds and created a group of various birds and hunted with them! For the 9-year-old me, Drongo was a dominating bird who is rude to other birds… But now, these drongos are my favorite. Especially racket-tailed drongo – which has long tail streamers and ivory black feathers. After learning about group hunting, I read several books and articles about drongos which made me see them as villains of the bird society. These birds are extremely clever. They can mimic other birds’ calls a...